WASHINGTON – Democrats and Republicans agreed Tuesday to a disaster-aid package for hurricane relief that also contained $576.5 million for federal wildfire-suppression programs.
More than 1 million acres have burned in California this year, and with other fires in several states, including Montana, the United States Forest Service budget has been stretched thin.
The agency was forced to borrow money from other parts of its budget, a practice known as fire-borrowing, to keep up with costs of this summer. The money appropriated Tuesday will be used to make up for the borrowed money.
The bill passed with broad support on both sides, including Colorado Sens. Cory Gardner and Michael Bennet. However, both said in written statements that there needs to be work beyond the short-term appropriations that continue to move through Congress.
“The funding in this legislation is important, but Congress has more to do to stop practices like fire-borrowing that hamper much-needed fire-suppression efforts,” Gardner said.
Bennet also disapproves of fire-borrowing and said a long-term fix is overdue.
“The money included in today’s disaster aid package to replenish Forest Service accounts will not be enough to increase the pace of forest restoration and wildfire mitigation,” Bennet said.
Most of the money will go to the U.S. Forest Service, which handles the national forest system, and about $50 million will be allocated to the Interior Department, which covers national parks, wildlife refuges and Native American reservations.
The wildfire-suppression funds are part of a larger package that includes $18.7 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to respond to hurricane damage in Florida, Texas and Puerto Rico, as well as $1.2 billion specifically for nutrition assistance in poor areas of Puerto Rico hit hard by Hurricane Maria.
The allocation also includes a $16 billion increase to the borrowing limit of the National Flood Insurance program.
In his statement, Gardner also wrote that he is pleased to see more funding for the continued recovery efforts in Puerto Rico.
“This aid package is just one of the steps we need to be taking to help Puerto Rico rebuild,” Gardner wrote.
The bill passed unchanged through the Senate and will move to President Trump to be signed or vetoed.
Samuel Northrop is a reporting intern for The Durango Herald in Washington, D.C., and a student at American University.
This story has been updated to correct the funding amount in the subheadline. Nearly $600 million to be used specifically to pay back the costs of fighting 2017 fires.
